Long Time No See.

Hey there enviromaniacs!

I feel bad. I haven't posted diddly squat in a while now.

I wanted to share an awesome book I found lately with you guys. It's called Homegrown and Handmade by Deborah Niemann.

I bought it a couple days ago at Earth's General Store, and it is quickly becoming one of my very favourite books ever. It's basically an outline for how to set up a homestead. When you think of the word "homestead", Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie probably come to mind,

but modern homesteading has changed since the days of the pioneers. Think more amazing garden vegetables and hand-spun wool and less fever-induced blindness and pigtail braids. In short, it's exactly what I hope to do. You should really ready it!

Big news: I recently purchased a new bike. It is great.

It is pictured here with our pretty little van, Sully. Evan also got a new bike and is currently biking 80 km to practice for the bike home from Jasper. I wish I could participate, but sadly, I think I would probably vomit or something unpleasant along the way.

Today I planted our flower beds! I, honestly, could not fall asleep last night because I was so excited to plant them this morning. 

I also made my first attempt at planting a basket. It is a little scraggly-looking, to say the least but I have confidence that it will be beautiful when it grows up a little.

Like I said, not much to look at for now but it will grow into a fine basket one day. I mostly just wanted to get the marigolds that Evan's grandma stuck in with my mutant geranium out of there. I loathe marigolds. 

That's all for now!

-Brett

Meat Yuckstitutes.

Hello Hello!

Last post, I talked a little about vegan/vegetarian diets. This time, I would like to share my opinion on vegetarian imitation meats, or any vegetarian/vegan product that is sold to imitate something that isn't veg-friendly. As you can probably already tell, I am not a fan.

First, there is the problem that no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be able to reproduce meat with vegetables. Not gon' happen. This is instantly problematic because people who are used to eating meat are not going to like the alternative, discouraging a meat-free diet.

There is also the fact that a lot of these products commonly found in your grocery store are not that healthy anyway. Many of them are high in fat, sodium, and are extremely refined, even though they have a vegetarian label on them. They are also commonly made with soy, a product that has gained a notorious reputation as of late, for a plethora of health and environmental reasons. For information on the problems associated with soy - check this out.

Another problem that I have with the imitation of meat products and the tendency to utilize meat-free ingredients to make meat dishes, is that it places limitations on the creativity of the chef. Vegetarian ingredients open up a whole new world of possibilities, they don't simply exist to imitate meat. It's really difficult to find good vegetarian recipes that aren't simply vegetarian burgers, steaks, etc. A really good resource for innovative, fresh recipes are raw food recipes. I recently bought a cookbook called Eat Raw, Eat Well. Every recipe I have tried so far has been so completely different than anything else I have cooked, and really tasty.

A final, disturbing fact for vegetarians is that choosing to purchase imitation meat or cooking veggie meats is basically admitting that they really need meat. It is saying that you are suffering so hard through your vegetarianism that you can't live without a burger.

I can't emphasize enough how rewarding it is to make your own food rather than buying it premade from a grocery store!

-Brett

Cookies!!!

Hey Guys,

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. It's been really hard trying to find time and motivation since I started working full time. Not that I'm complaining, my job rocks!

Recently before we moved, Evan and I decided to transition into a vegan diet. I celebrated my 5 year vegetarian anniversary this February :D and am ready to take it a little further. I don't mean to preach, but cutting meat out of your diet is one of the most effective things you can do to help save the environment! Livestock are responsible for more greenhouse gases than anything else in the world. There are also tons and tons of stats on the health benefits of vegans/vegetarians over their meat-eating brethren. Not to mention human and animal rights issues, food poisoning debacles, artificial hormones...

I've been thinking about how weird it is that we drink other animals' milk a lot lately. And the fact that we do it as adults! Think about how weird it would be if someone you knew told you they had human breast milk every morning with their cereal. Ew. And you don't normally see other animals drinking inter-species milk.

As a kid, I drank a lot of milk. probably around 3-4 big glasses a day, and this carried on until recently, when I started to look for milk replacements such as almond milk. Now that I rarely drink milk, whenever  I do, I feel sick within half an hour. Now I realize that I just never really noticed that I was feeling like that all the time before, and just assuming it was normal. Cutting milk out of my diet was a really natural step for me, especially with so many substitutes.

Eggs are yet another product of the livestock industry that I don't want to be a part of anymore. Chickens are farmed in outrageous conditions, which you only need look to Food Inc. to discover. Countless other Youtube videos for animal cruelty will show you the same thing.

I know a lot of people are scared of veganism, because they think that there's nothing left to eat at that point. Wrong! The key to vegan eating is cooking your own food. You can learn to modify almost any recipe to be vegan, as long as it's not meat-based, like steak. Here is an example of a recipe that I modified to be completely vegan!

Original Recipe: My Favourite Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 
  
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 
  
• 2 eggs
• 
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 
  
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 
  
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats
• 
  
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 
  
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Modified Recipe:

1/2 cup margarine

1/4 cup apple sauce

1/4 cup unrefined coconut oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 banana

a bunch of vanilla (who measures?)

1 1/4 cups multigrain or brown flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup porridge oats (a mix of whole oats, steel cut oats, flax bran and a bunch of other stuff)

1 cup quinoa

as many chocolate chips (vegan ones!) as you like!

1/3 cup of vegan cocoa

This is just an example of what you can do, there are so many different ingredients you can swap in/out!

Don't take my word for it! Thanks for reading,

Brett

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hello friendly neighbourhood readers!

It's been a busy few days. We had a successful move, with no tears shed. It's great to be back home, living life at a slower pace. It's the closest thing to paradise I've felt in a while.

Today marked my first day at work at the greenhouse! I already know that I'm going to love it. It's can be hard work but it's really rewarding. The first thing we did when we got there was unload a full length semi trailer packed floor to ceiling with trees! It was difficult to believe that many trees could fit in such a (relatively) small space. I am on tree duty for the rest of the month! WaHOOOO! So excite.

Evan and I are also biking to work. I'll admit this is a bit of a challenge for me right now. 10 km of highway can be a bit nerve wracking, and today the wind was definitely not in our favour. I am exhausted. It feels amazing. I need a new bike. One that fits my abnormally long body would be nice.

Yesterday we visited our friends and helped with some herb planting and met their worm pals. Fun!

If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be to get rid of as much stuff as possible. Foreal. Stuff sucks. I can tell you that the first thing to cross off my list right now is to have about a jillion garage sales. STAT. Simplify your life!

Thanks for reading my blog. And stuff.

-Brett

Permaculture

Moving day is getting closer and closer, and all I can think about is how much I want it to be here now. It sucks sitting in an empty apartment full of boxes, just waiting for the day to come. If Calgary taught us one thing, it's that the city is just not for us. Don't get me wrong, I like having access to pretty much anything I can think of, but it really feels like it's sucking the soul out of both Evan and myself.

Now I'm going to share my ultimate dream-life-goal with you. One day, I want to live completely independently of any outside resources, on a piece of land where everything is hand built by me. I want to learn how to make everything I use, and never buy anything. I don't want to have a career, because I don't believe in only doing one thing for a whole lifetime. Who thought of that?!!! Ideally, we'll be able to produce enough to sell and pay our taxes, and won't need anything else. One of my fellow hippy friends shared the idea of a gift economy with me - one where nobody holds on to more than they need. When you have an excess, you give it away, and when you are in need, it will be given to you. Why doesn't this exist?!

Hippy communes aside, permaculture is a seriously awesome and simple idea that doesn't require you to go completely off the grid to utilize the benefits. It's a method of design whereby sustainable practises are used, and modelled after natural ecosystems. Nothing is just plunked down somewhere without having a reason for being there. The goal within a permaculture system is not only to have a net zero energy cycle, but to actually come out with a net positive. Think about how many modern inventions are more than 100% efficient... Still thinking? Every time the human race comes up with a new piece of technology, a new set of problems comes along with it. We're so busy thinking about how we can create new gadgets to solve the problem, that we don't realize that the original change was the problem. We keep telling ourselves we need things. That is the problem.

One important (and really cool) element of permaculture is the swale. A swale is like a ditch, except instead of existing to drain water, swales are dug level to capture and harness water. Swales allow you to grow plants needing little to no irrigation, using water that would normally be lost to the ground. In Jordan, one of the most inhospitable places in the world for agriculture, where nearly everything is grown in a greenhouse, swales were used to effectively revegetate the desert. Amazing!

Check out the video!

If we only put some thought into our actions as a species and took action on those thoughts, we could really make a huge difference.

Thanks for reading!

-Brett

Earth Day vol. 2

We bought the worm composter! But unfortunately, we won't be able to use it for about 2 weeks, since worms didn't come with.

If you get the chance, check out this blog, it's an up-and-coming permaculture group sprouted from Calgary artist collective Light and Soul. We got our composter from them at Market Collective today!

Also, today Evan and I invested in some super cool shoes.

I've been seeing these around for a pretty long time now and always thought they were pretty neat. Today I tried them on, and it was love. They feel amazing. I wouldn't say they feel like barefoot, but they are definitely the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned. In fact, I am wearing them right now. Inside. I like that they allow you to interact with your surroundings in a way we're not used to (here, anyway). The Vibram company is a part of the barefoot movement, which I think is really cool. Only 20% of the world's population wears shoes! Weird to think about, but shoes actually damage your feet! It makes sense, once you realize that, similar to shampoo, the human body did not evolve to need them. However, living in an urbanized locale can definitely present hazards to the barefooted. That's why these shoes are so cool! Going barefoot or wearing these shoes actually strengthens the muscles in your feet and ankles, and toughens the soles of your feet, restoring their original purpose.

For more information regarding Vibrams and the barefoot movement, visit the Vibram website.

Earth Day

Hey y'all,

So today is Earth Day. What exactly does that mean? Does everybody carry around a reusable shopping bag today? Personally, I believe Earth Day is a total gimmick. Every day has to be "Earth Day" or there won't be an Earth guys! So go plant a tree! But don't just do it because it's Earth Day, do it because it's necessary.

When I'm finished this post, my boyfriend and I are going to market collective to buy some worm composters! I'm pretty sure Evan is in love with worms. Super excited to move back home so we can put the little guys to work!

On a side note, I went and saw two of my favourite bands last night, Boreal Sons and Andy Shauf. Both of them just put out new EP's, so if you have a chance, check them out!

Andy Shauf - Bandcamp

There's a drummer too, but unfortunately he was hidden away in a little nook and I couldn't get a good photo.
Boreal Sons - Bandcamp


How glad are you that this post is shorter than the last one? Thanks for reading!

-Brett